Louis Maistros - The Sound of Building Coffins

First thing I see is a sleeping angel. Une binette. She is not yellow or orange. There is a healthy color on her cheek, c afé au lait, but her body is thin and wasted. My Coffee Maria. She is covered in a white blanket. The blanket is long and soft; not for babies or the feet of dead men. For Coffee Maria. My love.

But I done guessed it right-Malvina there, too. Rocking in that creaky chair. Stroking Maria’s forehead with a wet rag. Her look is soft and sad. Her eyes meet mine. She isn’t afraid of the hate in my eye. She wave a hand. With no snake in her voice, she say: “Come in, boy. This little girl been waiting on you.” I have no rage in me now. I kneel beside my Maria. Hold her hand. Cry, me.

My baby’s eyes open. Softly, she: “Oh, look at you…” Looking at the hole where my nose used to be. Seeing me nekkid, bloody and thin. Feeling like a dern fool, me.

“I’m fine, little one. I’m fine as long as I’m with you. I’ll never leave you, again. My sweet Coffee Maria.” My voice sound funny without a nose, she make a little smile. Sweet, sweet, she.

“I had the fever, Marcus,” she say. “I was dying from fever but I needed to see you. I needed to say that I love you. I needed you to know that I love you. I won’t lay down with them other fellas no more. I promise. I’ve always loved you, Marcus…”

“Shhhh, little one…save your strength…”

“No. I need to say this.” Her face gone serious and stern. I could not say no to her.

Pretty little voice, soft and weak:

“There was a baby in my body, Marcus-your baby. I named him Michael-for the saint. He knew. Little Michael knew. From the womb, he knew. He saw us through all that death, and brought us back together. Even if just for a little while, he brought us together. It was what he wanted. For us to be together again. When he was born…” her voice broke into little sobs.

Malvina continued in her stead, the mambo’s voice gentle and even:

“When that little baby came out of Maria, he took the disease with him. Her fever broke the minute of his delivery. He lived a little while, then died. Died from fever. He died for his mama. And you. So she could be with you. But his work was not done. He sent you on your way, Marcus. Into the grave. So you could know. He was never far from you. Always nearby. And when you were ready, he found you. And he brought you back. Back to her.”

Tiny fingers on my tongue…

And it was true.

(…)

I am found.

“He never left you. Never gave up on you. You must not give up on him, Marcus.” The mambo’s eyes filled with clear water. “She’s dying now, our Maria. Her body was too weak from sickness. Michael’s sacrifice only bought her time. Took the sickness out, but her body too spent. She’s dying, Marcus…” Tears silvered the mambo’s cheek.

Maria smiled at her aunt, a finger to her lips. “He found you, Marcus. He really did. Our baby. Now you must bring him back, my love. Find his little body. Bury him with me. So we can all be together in the potter’s field. All three. Together. We are a family now, Marcus. Find our boy. Promise.”

“I promise.”

She hold my hand tight. Smile. Her eyes fading but glowing still. She believe my promise, but I don’t know if I believe it myself. I am shivering. She pull that perfect blanket off her body, hold it up to me. I push it back to her.

Malvina say: “No. It’s time.” Gently, Malvina take that sacred blanket from Maria’s hands, step behind me. Wrap it around my shoulders. My Maria is skin and bones in a loose, yella dress, lying on the bed. Her feet are bare, my little Coffee Maria. She lift a hand to my face, stroke my muddy head. Pull me down to her sweet lips, whisper soft in my ear:

“Mo couer tacher dans to chaine comme boskoyo dans cypiere.”

Her dying breath was sweet as cypress. I could feel it on my tongue. Like tiny fingers. I pulled the blanket tight around me. And it felt just like a miracle.

Now .

As for me, well.

Still doing that hard potter field work, old as I am. Lotta work to do round here, the storm has made it so. But that’s just fine-when I work that field, my Maria is close. When I ain’t with her, I’m here on this piece of levee lookin’ for that fish.

I made my gal a promise many years past, and promises are for keeps.

I’ll find our baby Michael before I die. Maybe after. Til I find him, I won’t stay down. You can bury me, but I’ll come back up. When the water is right, I’ll be back. Little Michael will see to it, and I’ll see to him. Don’t you worry none. I’m looking for that catfish. The tan one with pale eyes- des yeaux goueres. The one that touched my cheek and gave me comfort among the drifting dead.

Regarding this more recent storm, I will always remember those things, too. For like the storm of my youth, its unfolding will likely go on for a good bit.

Like so many others, Buddy Bolden rose to the challenge brought on by high water only to find himself diminished with the tide. Straight off, he sought only to recover the body of his little son-just as I continue to seek my own in the now. But Buddy gave up too quick, lacked the tenacity to continue against all odds, just as others can’t help but go on. Some folks is unable to keep toiling after so much bad fortune, and I don’t blame them for it-not one lick I don’t. These troubles can be more than hard. Beyond sad they sometimes are. After a spell of fruitless trying, Buddy just fell into that bottle of his. Fell so hard he wound up in the big asylum over by Jackson, very likely to die there some day. In the end, I reckon he done what he could to right his own wrongs, done the best he could. But there’s only so much a man can do in that regard, only so many bad deeds can be made good on.

But Buddy’s time here was not in vain, for he brought music into this sad world-and he did one extraordinary good deed in saving that Morningstar gal. The one called Malaria.

Not long after the risen waters had gone back down, she come across an old friend from the Eagle Saloon, Gary the Gent. She’d assumed Gary to be dead and swept away like so many she had known, and had tried hard not to dwell upon such. But later come to find he’d made it up and out of the black waters just like she.

This meeting of Gary and Malaria was at once tender and cordial, she holding back tears and promising to make good on that old bar tab. He just smiled and took her in his arms-and there she stayed; their mutual tears ripening on a vine of the heart till heavy enough that they might fall of their own accord. Tears did fall in time-and that ain’t all that fell neither. Other things come of that chance reunion. Good things they were, too.

Malaria and Gary the Gent, whose last name is Byrd, were married six months ago today. The two of them knew each other only as friends before the storm, but in their rediscovery of each other after so much misery apart, well, it was as if the tragedy of their lives had created a passion for living that they’d otherwise never have known.

Starting over is a funny thing. You only get one true start, on the day you are born. But as we get older and know better about the lives we’ve lived, every once in awhile we try to make ourselves a new beginning. Problem is that you can’t erase where you come from, the accumulation of your experience being undeniably who you are. Ain’t no one can be rebirthed out of a past that has come to define them, no matter if these things come by chance or design. You can only pretend to start again; never to forget, try as you might.

I guess that’s what Buddy learned. Some fare better than others in this life-with its various turns and stops and starts. This may not be right, but it is true.